Three sister's Quilts

My sister from BC visited me in June for the first time in 14 years. We had a great time catching up. I had only been quilting for a few years the last time she was here so we had a great time exploring patterns, fabric, UFO's, etc. She was intrigued with the Spinning Four Patch and when I told her I was contemplating doing a mini, she was all excited. She loves miniatures even more than I do :-). I let her loose in my fabric stash with the instruction to find a small scale busy print that she liked. She chose a pretty sea shell fabric that I had purchased for another project, but it was not suitable so went into the stash. It was perfect for this project. We cut out the squares 1 3/4". Here you see Thea playing with the layouts of the squares and coming up with her favourites.

Squares ready to sew together:

First squares sewn and on the design wall:

We had quite a few squares so decided that we would get our youngest sister, Eva, involved as well and make three little quilts. We would each choose our own colours for sashing and binding and our own layout. Thea chose her favourite colour combination, blue and yellow and decided on this layout:

Not sure if the quilting in the border shows up on the photo (click on it to enlarge it), but I quilted stars and loops in the border:

Eva chose to set her blocks on point and have hers made into a mini table runner for her patio table and chose blue and pink for her accent colours:

I quilted little funky flowers in the light blue squares:


Quilting on the back of the quilt:

I decided to make a little doll quilt for one of my antique doll beds and went for the brighter red for mine. I also set the squares on point and added a narrow gold border and used the same for binding:

I quilted pansies in the blocks and swirlies in the border:


Here are the three quilts altogether:

Now to wrap them up for Christmas and get the one for Thea in the mail :-).

Another cube!

I finally got to the Marsh Store on Thursday and picked up the "One block Wonders - Encore" book with the patterns for the cubes. While I was there, I found a background fabric to use in between the cubes.

I made another cube last night...the bottom right one. It's called the 'bottom slice' :-). These cubes are so fun to work on, but you do have to keep your wits about you when sewing them. When you have them close up on the sewing table, you don't get the cube look...they look like trapezoids and triangles! The center seam is not sewn yet as you have to do that last. I have another one half finished, and hope to post a few more soon.

A New Iron

I broke down Friday and bought a new iron :-). My trusty iron has been spitting and coughing for a bit and I decided it's time to retire it before I burn myself. Checked out the irons and found this lovely pink one...what fun. I haven't tried it out yet, but hope to take it for a test run on Monday. Isn't it nice and shiny? My favourite job of ironing fabric will be even more fun now.

Another UFO finished!

In November 2006 (I think that is the correct date :-), I attended an applique workshop taught by Cynthia Tomaszewski, through the London Friendship Quilt Guild. Cynthia was a delightful teacher and made the class so much fun! We learned freezer paper applique and fusible with a blanket or fancy stitch. This is her sample of the wallhanging that we made:


Here is a leaf shape that I practised on:


The fusible with blanket stitch flower:

The leaves were appliqued with needle turn around freezer paper shapes:


Center appliqued and borders on:

The completed handquilted wallhanging (finally!). I sewed buttons in the centers of the flowers.

Wow, it feels good to get this little wallhanging finished! It just kept getting shoved to the bottom of the pile and delayed in our two moves. Now to find a spot to hang it up!

CUBE MANIA!!

We had a fabulous day together at my friend Amy's house. We got together with five of us to sew cubes. What fun!! And addictive too.... Here is Amy getting us organized:

Amy, Yellie, Barb and Lynn are busy choosing fabrics and cutting at Amy's wonderful cutting table:

Lynn, Barb and Yellie cutting diligently. Note the garbage container on the cutting board!! Amy's sense of humour :-).

Lynn concentrating on cutting:

Lynn and Barb brainstorming ideas for the blocks:

Barb, Yellie and Amy pondering options:

Barb busily sewing blocks. These blocks are so addictive as you hurry along just so you can see what the colours are going to look like! I was sewing beside Barb...you can just see the Featherweight peeking out of the photo:

Me, Barb and Lynn sewing and laying out our blocks:

The ironing station:

Yellie working away at her blocks.

Barb and I sewing:

Barb, Amy and Yellie gathering to take a look at our blocks. Lynn had just stepped out of the picture :-).

Lynn putting her blocks on the flannel board:

Yellie's blocks:

Barb's blocks which she finished later:

My blocks:

All the blocks we finished this afternoon..sorry this picture is a little dark...if Amy sends me better ones, I'll replace it :-). These blocks are not sewn together down the middle yet. When you have all the blocks laid out for your project, you sew them together in rows to avoid set in seams.


Amy's blocks! She didn't do these all today!! She's been working on these for a few weeks:

Of course we had fabulous food to go along with our sewing day...yummy potato soup, pastries and scones, fruity tea and biscotti and dark chocolate pieces! Mmmmmmm....what a great day!! Thanks for your hospitality Amy. It was a great day.

My Singer 301 in Queen Anne cabinet

Spent most of the day on Thursday working on some quilt blocks. Since my trusty treadle has a half quilted quilt on it, I dug out my black Singer 301 and unpacked all the attachments and got it set up to sew again. I haven't used it yet since we moved, so it was high time! She still sews like a dream. It is a great machine for piecing. Here is the head of the machine:


....and here it is with the cabinet and matching stool. We actually didn't get the bench and cabinet together. The cabinet was purchased at an auction sale with a Singer 15 in it that was later converted to a treadle. The bench came a few years later at a totally different auction. I was thrilled to complete the set and the colours even match perfectly. The bits and pieces on the cabinet are green and beige four patches and triangle squares which I use for leader/enders as Bonnie Hunter calls them. I am working on getting enough patches together to make another quilt like the first one in the leaders/enders article. I've already made one blue and white quilt like this for my nephew's wedding and decided to make another one with greens and beiges. I have quite a few blocks ready, but have a ways to go for a complete quilt.

Joey gets a quilt for JK

My grandson, Joey, started JK this year and they need a nap quilt :-). An I Spy quilt would be just the thing! I laid out a bunch of squares on the design wall and had to babysit Joey and his sister, Kara, in August. I thought Joey might like to help me choose squares for his quilt...this would keep him busy and I could work on the quilt at the same time! Wow, he sure kept busy!! He absolutely loved checking out my novelty stash of fabrics and had very definite ideas on what was NOT to go into his quilt.

Joey: "GRANDMA!!! I can't have this pig in my quilt!! It's pink and pink is for girls!"

Grandma: "But, Joey...pigs are pink!"

Joey: "No, pink is for girls!!" And, he proceeded to pull the pigs off the board and discard them. Here he is checking out all the squares and pulling off the ones that were too girly.

He got to enjoy rearranging so much that soon there was not a square left on the board. He was fascinated by the way they stuck to the flannel design wall and did a total dramatic demonstration for his parents when he got home LOL!

Of course, Miss Kara had to help too, but got in her brother's way. So, the discarded 'girl' squares went onto the other side of the design wall and this was Kara's domain:

She's not even two and had it figured out quite quickly!!


The backing for the quilt:


The finished quilt. The inside border has the cutest kid's sayings on it and the outside border is a chalk board with letters and stick men.

The label on the back:

I meandered the center of the quilt and quilted straight lines in the border.


A few more of the squares: